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Justice News

Department of Justice

U.S. Attorney’s Office

Western District of New York

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Friday, January 10, 2014

Former Hells Angel Member Sentenced for Stealing Shipment from Railcar

ROCHESTER, N.Y. -- U.S. Attorney William J. Hochul, Jr. announced today that Richard E. Riedman, 40, of Webster, N.Y., who was convicted of conspiracy to burglarize a railroad car and theft of an interstate shipment following a jury trial, was sentenced to 37 months in prison and ordered to pay $4,669.26 in restitution by U.S. District Judge Charles J. Siragusa.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Brett A. Harvey, who handled the case, stated that, in the early morning hours of June 30, 2009, Riedman, a former member of the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club, along with co-conspirators Christopher Monfort, Anthony Toscano, Anthony Russell, and Timothy Stone, stole more than 17 gross tons of a high-grade scrap steel from a railcar at a CSXT rail yard in Batavia, N.Y. Riedman and his co-conspirators used a logging truck to remove the scrap steel from the railcar, wore dark clothing and used lookouts to avoid detection by law enforcement authorities and pedestrians, and used two-way radios to communicate with each other during the theft. The defendants were caught by members of the Genesee County Sheriff's Office in the logging truck and a pick-up truck as they left the scene of the theft in the early morning hours of June 30, 2009. The bales were in the process of being shipped to a steel mill in Pennsylvania when they were stolen. Riedman, Toscano, Russell and Stone were convicted after a two-week jury trial before Judge Siragusa in September 2012.

Judge Siragusa previously sentenced Toscano to 18 months in prison, Russell to 15 months, and Stone to 12 months. Monfort, who pleaded guilty to burglary from a railroad car and the manufacture of 50 or more marijuana plants, was sentenced by Judge Siragusa to 78 months in prison.

The sentencing is the culmination of an investigation on the part of Special Agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, under the direction of Special Agent in Charge Brian P. Boetig, and the Genesee County Sheriff's Office, under the direction of Gary Maha.